Does life equal existence?

When you look back at your life and can say it is without regrets, have one person who you can count on whether times good or bad, can reflect back on the few friendships you have made that will last a lifetime, have earned the respect of another being and can sleep at night with a heart without malice, you know you are living a life that will be the envy of many, a life worth living.

Life is a strange anomaly, sometimes we take it to be many days of mere existence clubbed together and sometimes we use those few in between moments to make what we call life. Life is both of these and still so much more. You might wonder why I always reflect back on topics dealing with life in most of my blogs, but the truth is I find nothing more intriguing. It is filled with complexities but is still so simple. It can never be explained but it is self-explanatory.

When I think of life I don’t think of the decades, years, months, days, minutes or seconds I have lived, that is not life that is existence. Life is living, not merely existing. If I have to define it I would say it is that period of your existence when you have put the amalgamation of your mind, heart and soul into trying to make the day or the task at hand have an impact on you or on others. It is the time where you have been afraid but taken chances, when you have made relationships without malice and when you have acted without negativity.

Do not get me wrong, people who act with malice or negativity may be living a life too, but for me that counts for very little for that is a life with regret and I don’t believe in such a life. I am not saying don’t make mistakes, don’t falter, I have and I continue to do so but I don’t regret because every step, good or bad, beneficial or harmful, has taught me a lesson, made me the person I am becoming.

You might say I have an idealistic view but I believe it is a realistic one; it just takes a little more patience, perseverance and faith. It is about believing the glass is half full because someday it all does come back. Since millions of years there has remained the distinction of good and bad and it is this distinction that we call karma. So yes, idealistic as it may be, but I believe my goodness will come back to me in its most unexpected ways and the negativity I put out there will reflect somewhere in my life to come.

A life is never complete without people in it. This could be your family, your friends, your partner, your teacher, an acquaintance or even a complete stranger. We all need someone to laugh with us, to console us and to be proud of us. We all need someone to talk to, some more than the others. We all need that one person who has impacted us, who has somehow taught us the difference between good and bad, between black, grey and white.

I know of many people who are proud of their social lives and the many friends they have on social networking sites. But what surprises me most is the number of young people I see complaining about the lack of people to share with despite of so many friends on their lists. A friend is not the number of people you can call to a party, the number of people you have following you on twitter or wishing you a happy birthday on Facebook. It is those people who you can call when you are crying and those you know have only good intentions in their heart for you. It is those people you will tell about your first job and who will be there at your first heartbreak abusing the person alongside you. Any person fitting into this description is a friend for life. And life without such friends is no life at all.

I don’t know how many people respect the person I am, how many people ridicule me. I don’t know how many people out there think of my downfall and how many have at some point played a part in the low points of my life. But each of these persons does not sleep soundly, and each of them are filled with envy because each of these persons are thinking about another and not at bettering who they are, their life. Such is a life with regrets, a life which keeps you awake at night.

I sleep at night with a clean heart because I know that if I fall to the levels of people who harbor ill will, I will forget about me and the people who matter and move on to caring about the downfall of them. I cannot bring myself to do so because I know better than that, I have learnt better than that.

Thus I say all of us exist but only a handful of us live. It is never too late to start living but for that we need to stop being complacent and being content with existing.